Dish Network urges FCC to stop Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger

By Kelly Moffitt – Social Engagement Manager , St. Louis Business Journal

Jul 10, 2014, 7:29am CDT

The satellite television provider Dish Network wants regulators to block the $45 billion merger of Comcast and Time Warner Cable.

Dish, on Monday, asked the Federal Communications Commission to block the merger on account of competitive concerns in the pay television and broadband series, the New York Times reported.

“The ability for Dish and other nondominant players to compete in the broadband and video markets will be impacted by how the commission responds to the mergers before it,” Jeffrey Blum, senior vice president and deputy general counsel at Dish, said in a letter to the commission’s secretary, Marlene Dortch.

A spokeswoman for Comcast, Sena Fitzmaurice, responded in a statement that Dish is a “most vigorous competitor" of Comcast and that “Dish not wanting stronger competitors isn’t surprising and it isn’t new."

Comcast would control 35.5 percent of the fixed broadband market in the United States if the deal goes through.